Middle East

The two terror attacks in Ankara within a month not only took many
innocent lives but also played into the hands of Erdoğan’s regime, as
they rendered the Kurdish people’s demands for freedom and their
struggle against the regime disreputable. In terms of the methods used
and their results, such political acts are no different from the attacks
of ISIS’s cut-throat jihadists on the Kurds, the working class and
socialists. This cannot be the way towards a world free from violence
and oppression. Whatever the justification might be, Sosyalist does not
identify with political acts and methods that play into the hands of the
ruling class, as the latter renders the legitimate struggle of the
working class and Kurdish people disreputable. Foremost among these
methods is individual terrorism.

Two terrorist attacks occurred in the heart of the two biggest cities of
Turkey. 42 people died in these attacks; the one in Ankara was claimed
by TAK (Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan / Kurdistan Freedom Falcons); the
other was undertaken by ISIS in Istanbul.

As these attacks directly targeted civilians and caused fear and
concern, those who defend their power are trying to make us believe that
this is ‘destiny’. For example, Abdulkadir Aksu, a well-known pro-AKP
journalist, has stated that we have to “get used” to living with
terrorism.

President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Davutoğlu tried to blame the
bombing in January on the Kurds of the PYD, as a pretext for a military
intervention into Rojava and Syria. They intend to use the latest
attacks to brand everyone who opposes them as terrorists, and therefore
suppress them. According to this logic, they will expand the meaning of
‘terror’ to bring every opponent of Erdoğan into its scope! They have
already concocted a concept of ‘unarmed terrorists’ and have begun to
use it.

Erdoğan, who loves to challenge Western states in his speeches, is in
fact imitating them. Erdoğan and the AKP government are using the same
methods as the imperialist governments of the USA, France and elsewhere
as an opportunity to trim democratic rights against the claims of the
working class and strengthen police powers, They are counting on passing
legislation along these lines as they stir up the fears that the last
attack has inevitably created among big sections of the population.

All the legislation and regulations Erdoğan and the government are
planning are designed to suppress all kinds of demands and rights by the
Turkish and Kurdish working people. These are political means of
suppression for everybody who opposes corruption, unemployment, high
costs of living and environmental destruction (in Artvin Cerattepe, a
town in North-Eastern Turkey, people organized resistance against mining
activities in order to defend the environment) along with the
long-standing Kurdish people’s claims for democratic rights. This
legislation will be used against metalworkers who are struggling for
their demands, and against any other possible workers’ struggles in the
forthcoming period.

Erdoğan and the AKP are responsible

Erdoğan and his supporters in the AKP government are primarily
responsible for this. They have converted the Kurdish question into a
‘civil war’ and have supported jihadist groups, driven by their
neo-Ottoman imperialist ambitions over Syria.

No terror attacks can smooth over state massacres. The Kurdish people
have experienced a great tragedy since July 2015. Having put a brutal
end to the negotiations with the Kurds, Erdogan is pursuing a huge war
in the name of ‘counter-terrorism’ using all sections of the armed
forces. The situation in Cizre after a three-month curfew is
increasingly comparable with Aleppo or Kobane, which was torn apart by
ISIS’s siege. Recently, 200 mostly civilian and injured people who were
trapped in three basement floors of a building were murdered in front of
the eyes of all Turkey. Becoming inured to those attacks against the
Kurds is no different from keeping silent about the terror attacks
taking place in Ankara and İstanbul.

The AKP has never hesitated to support gruesome jihadist organizations
due to its neo-Ottoman ambitions and its perceived ‘nightmare’, created
by the possibility of the Kurds in Northern Syria using their right to
self-determination. As a result, the Turkish state has turned towards
the backyard of the jihadists. Those jihadists have so far committed
attacks on Kurds, the labour movement, socialists and non-Muslim
tourists. Thirty-three young socialists in Suruç, 102 demonstrators
demanding ‘Peace, Democracy and Jobs’ in front of the Ankara railway
station and 16 tourists in İstanbul were murdered as a result of these
butchers’ attacks. Apparently, ISIS has not set the state as a target;
whenever this happens, that will be the time when Turkey’s
‘Pakistanization’ begins. ISIS supporters within Turkey and militants
fighting in their ranks in Syria would certainly like to turn Turkey
into a new Afghanistan or Pakistan, where the substructure is demolished
and people lose their lives every day – even though society in Turkey is
more developed than in those countries, and the working class stronger.

Meanwhile, Erdoğan and the government accuse every critical voice and
opponent of the regime of spying or of supporting terrorism. Can Dundar
and Erdem Gul were accused and charged with spying just because they
revealed state documents about the policies of backing jihadist forces.
Hence, to keep silent in such situation means to keep silent about the
creeping ‘Pakistanization’ of Turkey.

Our method is strikes, mass demonstrations and occupations

It is a great irony that the two attacks carried out by TAK, claiming to
struggle for the rights of Kurdish people, and that carried out by ISIS,
who burn alive, behead and ruthlessly kill people have largely been
equated in people’s minds.

In his interview to the BBC Turkish service, Serhat Varto, a spokesman
of the KCK (the urban organization of the PKK) said: “We are not
struggling just for Kurdish people. We are struggling for all peoples in
Turkey to live as equals, freely and brotherly… Such political acts are
harmful for our objectives. We call on everyone to avoid this. While
carrying out acts oriented at state forces, we have to keep a distance
from attitudes that may harm peoples’ desire and will for co-existence”.
He denied any connection with the attacks; however it is not quite
convincing that TAK is carrying out those attacks without the knowledge
of the PKK.

If this situation goes on, it will be increasingly difficult to build
unity between the legitimate struggle of the Kurdish people and the
struggle of the broader working class. The HDP has condemned the terror
attacks; this correct political stand has partially disappointed Erdoğan
and the nationalists. Sosyalist Alternatif (CWI-Turkey) supports this
statement of the HDP. Ordinary people living in the West of the country
are not responsible for the state massacres in Northern Kurdistan, nor
are Kurdish people demanding their democratic rights responsible for the
terrorist bombings.

A struggle against both Erdoğan and the AKP is necessary. For a regime
that destroys even the last vestiges of legality, arrests academics just
for signing a peace declaration, imprisons journalists for doing their
job and responds to even the smallest demonstration with water cannon,
the only way to survive is division. We have to reject the ruling
class’s attempts to maintain their rule by dividing us. On a class basis
we are the majority and they are only a handful. We are the strongest as
long as we consciously organize for this struggle. The working class
holds great power within the production process and the economy as a
whole. Nothing will happen unless we unchain this power via mass
strikes, demonstrations, and occupations.

No to wars, massacres, and exploitation, either in Ankara or in Cizre!